第36章 CHAPTER VIII(2)

Flies are a nuisance in South Harniss in midsummer and Captain Shad detested them. Just as the last sheet was laid in place, a young fellow and a girl came in. Mary-'Gusta recognized them both. The girl was the seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy summer resident, a Mr. Keith from Chicago. The Keiths had a fine cottage on the bluff at the other end of the village. The young chap with her was, so gossip reported, a college friend of her brother. His surname was prosaic enough, being Smith, but his first name was Crawford and his home was somewhere in the Far West. He was big and good-looking, and the Boston papers mentioned him as one of the most promising backs on the Harvard Freshman eleven. Next year, so the sporting writers opined, he would almost certainly make the Varsity team. Most of Mary-'Gusta's feminine friends and acquaintances rated him "perfectly splendid" and regarded Edna Keith with envious eyes.

This morning both he and the Keith girl were arrayed in the gayest of summer regalia. Young Smith's white flannel trousers were carefully creased, his blue serge coat was without a wrinkle, his tie and socks were a perfect match, and his cap was of a style which the youth of South Harniss might be wearing the following summer, but not this one. Take him "by and large," as Captain Shadrach would have said, Crawford Smith was an immaculate and beautiful exhibit; of which fact he, being eighteen years of age, was doubtless quite aware.

He and the Keith girl were, so Mary-'Gusta learned, a committee of two selected to purchase certain supplies for a beach picnic, a combination clambake and marshmallow toast, which was to take place over at Setuckit Point that day. Sam Keith, Edna's brother, and the other members of the party had gone on to Jabez Hedges' residence, where Jabez had promised to meet them with the clams and other things for the bake. Edna and her escort, having made their purchases at Hamilton and Company's, were to join them at the "clam-man's." Then the whole party was to go down to the wharf and the sailboat.

Miss Edna, who was a talkative damsel, informed Mary-'Gusta of these facts at once. Also she announced that they must hurry like everything.

"You see," she said, "we told Sam and the rest we'd be at the clam-man's in ten minutes, and, if we're not there, Sam will be awfully cross. He hates to wait for people. And we've been too long already. It's all your fault, Crawford; you would stop to hear that fruit man talk. I told you you mustn't."

The "fruit man" was Mr. Gaius Small, and, although he stammered, he loved the sound of his own voice. The demand for a dozen oranges furnished Gaius with subject sufficient for a lengthy monologue--

"forty drawls and ten stutters to every orange," quoting Captain Shad again.

"I told you you mustn't get him started," went on Miss Keith, gushingly. "He'll talk forever if he has a chance. But you would do it. Asking him if he kept pomegranates and bread-fruit! The idea! I'm sure he doesn't know what a pomegranate is. You were SO solemn and he was SO ridiculous! I thought I should DIE. You really are the drollest person, Crawford Smith! I don't know what I shall do with you."

It was evident that her opinion of young Smith was not different from that of other young ladies of her age. Also that Crawford himself was not entirely unconscious of that opinion. At eighteen, to be set upon a pedestal and worshiped, to have one's feeblest joke hailed as a masterpiece of wit, is dangerous for the idol; the effort of sustaining the elevated position entails the risk of a fall. Crawford was but eighteen and a good fellow, but he had been worshiped a good deal. He was quite as sensible as other young chaps of his age, which statement means exactly that and no more.

"Well," he said, with a complacent grin, "we learned how to pronounce 'pomegranate' at any rate. You begin with a pup-pup-pup, as if you were calling a dog, and you finish with a grunt like a pig. I wish I had asked him for a persimmon; then he'd have made a noise like a cat."

Miss Keith, when she recovered from her spasm of merriment, declared her companion "perfectly killing."

"But we must hurry," she said. "We really must Crawford, you buy the things. I should think of that fruit man and laugh all the time, I know I should."

She remained by the door and the young gentleman strolled to the counter. He cast an amused glance about the store; its display of stock was, thanks to Mary-'Gusta's recent efforts at tidiness, not quite the conglomerate mass it had been when the partners were solely responsible, but the variety was still strikingly obvious.

"Humph!" observed Crawford; "I've forgotten what we came to buy, but I'm sure it is here, whatever it is. Some emporium, this!

Introduce me to the proprietor, will you, Edna?"

Edna giggled.

"She isn't the proprietor," she said. "She is just the clerk, that's all. Her name is--I've forgotten your name, dear. What is it?"

"Mary Lathrop," replied Mary-'Gusta, shortly. She objected to being addressed as "dear" and she strongly objected to the patronizing tone in which it was uttered. Edna Keith was older than she, but not old enough to patronize.

"Oh, yes, so it is," said the young lady. "But that isn't what everyone calls you. They call you something else--something funny--

Oh, I know! Mary-'Gusta, that's it. I knew it was funny. Mary-

'Gusta, this is Mr. Smith. He wants to buy some things. And he's in a GREAT hurry."

"Charmed, Mary-'Gusta," said Mr. Smith. Mary'-Gusta did not appear charmed. She asked him what he wanted.

"Search ME," said the young gentleman, cheerfully. "There was a list, wasn't there, Edna? You have it, I think."

Edna produced the list, scrawled in pencil on the back of an envelope. Crawford looked it over.

"Sam's writing isn't exactly print," he observed, "but I can guess at it. Let's see--a pound of butter. Where's the butter department of this Bon Marche, Edna?"

Edna, after another convulsion, declared she didn't know.